Outlook optimistic for ‘KU First’

Through no fault of its own, Kansas University Endowment Association’s fund-raising campaign, “KU First: Investing in Excellence,” has turned into one long, surprise-filled roller-coaster ride.

For starters, “KU First” picked Sept. 7, 2001, to unveil its plan to raise $500 million, unaware that all hell would break loose four days later.

Paul Chang, president and co-founder of Sunrise Telecom Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based telecommunications company, has pledged $500,000 for an expansion of the School of Engineering building.

Retired cardiologist Sherman M. Steinzeig, Overland Park, has bequeathed $520,000 for a scholarship and an award for the promotion of excellence at KU Medical School. Steinzeig also promised to establish a $500,000 Sherman M. and Alfred S. Steinzeig Memorial scholarship fund with the KU Endowment Associations.

The estate of Jessie Hodges Benton, a writer for the Kansas City Star and Vogue magazine, left Kansas University Medical Center $1.5 million to support research and treatment of deafness and blindness and a new professorship.

Joe and Susan Morris, Leawood, have established a $1.2 million charitable remainder trust with the Kansas University Endowment Association, half of which, upon their deaths, will be available for “unrestricted expenditures,” which means it will be allocated to areas of the greatest need according to the priorities set forth by KU’s chancellor. Roughly one-third of the gift will support athletics; the remainder will be divided among the schools of business, architecture and journalism. The couple also pledged more than $100,000 over the next four years to support coaching excellence in KU men’s basketball.

The Starr Foundation has given $500,000 in securities to help fund construction of exhibits at KU’s Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, which is under construction near the Lied Center on the university’s west campus.

Hortense “Tensie” Oldfather, a longtime volunteer and philanthropist, has given more than $1 million in securities to KU Endowment Association for the construction of new facilities for public radio station KANU.

The Sunderland Foundation, a family foundation based in Overland Park, has pledged $500,000 for the KANU facility. The pledge includes $100,000 from the Ash Grove Charitable Fund at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.

Delbert L. and Barbara Ossian Williamson, Atlanta, Ga., have pledged $250,000 to establish the KU’s first endowed professorship in counseling psychology. Plans call for Delbert Williamson’s employer, General Electric, to eventually match the couple’s pledge, bringing the total to $500,000.

“The events of Sept. 11 really halted our fund-raising efforts for a good 30 to 45 days,” said Dale Seuferling, the endowment’s executive vice president for development and director of the KU First campaign before he was named president of the Endowment Association in July.

For KU First, the next four months were tough. Contributions went from the initial $280 million to $322 million in late January.

Then came the Enron accounting scandal, followed by reports that other major corporations’ finances World.com’s, most notably were every bit as tenuous.

“In retrospect, the first part of the year (2002) turned out to be more productive than the middle part,” Seuferling said. “May, June and July turned out to be very unsettling. The uncertainty of the markets has had a very real impact on people’s comfort in giving.

“They still were very much in support of the university and its goals that hasn’t changed,” he said. “But the market has consistently gone the wrong direction.”

In May, “KU First” had raised $337 million.

KU First is the largest fund-raising campaign in the university’s 138-year history.

The campaign is scheduled to end in the fall of 2004.

“It may take us longer than we originally thought to reach the point where all the pledges and commitments are finalized, but we should be there by late 2004,” Seuferling said. “The economy should start turning around by then. Let’s hope so.”

Defining university’s future

The successes of KU First will define the university’s future. Already, work has begun groundbreaking, at least on a new engineering building, new quarters for Kansas Public Radio and a new entryway and landscaping at 15th and Iowa streets.

“These are just the things that are visible to the public,” Seuferling said. “They’re in addition to all the behind-the-scenes kinds of things going on with scholarships, professorships, teaching awards all kinds of things.”

He added: “The impact of KU First is already being felt.”

KU First left the starting blocks with a $280 million base, a combination of previous pledges and contributions raised during the campaign’s “quiet phase” and highlighted by the Hall Family Foundation’s pledging $42 million for life sciences, humanities and business.

Also, longtime benefactors Forrest Hoglund and his wife, Sally, had contributed $7 million to building a new brain imaging center at KU Medical Center.

Forrest Hoglund is chairman of the campaign’s 18-member steering committee.

Major contributions

Since the start of the campaign’s “public phase”:

Dana and Sue Anderson pledged $8 million toward construction of a new athletics strength and conditioning center that will house weight training equipment, locker rooms and a cardiovascular workout area.

Longtime donors, the Andersons live in Los Angeles. Dana Anderson graduated from KU in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in business.

Charley W. Oswald gave $6 million for the university’s department of economics, $1 million for the School of Business and $3 million in unrestricted funds.

Oswald, who lives in Edina, Minn., graduated from KU in 1951. His gift is the endowment’s largest single outright contribution from an individual.

Lester “Dusty” Loo and Katherine Haughey Loo pledged $1 million toward and gave $500,000 for a planned expansion of KU’s Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art.

Katherine Loo graduated in 1961. Dusty Loo graduated from KU in 1960. He died Dec. 25, 2001, two months after the couple’s gift was announced.

Kansas City-based Sosland Foundation pledged $1 million for the recruitment of a director for the new Center for Urban Child Health at KU.

The estate of James L. and Gladys B. Sharp bequeathed $5 million for scholarships and other unrestricted uses.

Though neither of the Sharps attended KU, the couple held KU in high regard. James Sharp, a certified public accountant, joined Boeing Aircraft in Wichita shortly after graduating from Kansas State University in 1933.

He died in 1999. Gladys Sharp died in 1984.

Topeka-based Capital Federal Savings pledged $2 million for the establishment of a distinguished professorship in finance at the KU School of Business.

Capital Federal Savings’ gift is expected to multiply with the help of the Kansas Partnership for Faculty of Distinction, a program established by the Legislature in 2000 that makes interest earned on the professorship eligible for matching support by the state.

Prior to the KU First campaign, the endowment association had conducted two other major fund-raisers. The most recent, “Campaign Kansas,” ran from 1987 to 1992 and raised $265.3 million, after an original goal of $100 million.

The earlier “Program for Progress” raised $21 million from 1966 to 1969.